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UO faculty weighs union

Comparatively low pay and a rift with administration are driving the possibility of unionizing, organizers say

By Greg Bolt

The Register-Guard

Appeared in print: Sunday, Oct. 25, 2009, page B1

Concerned about comparatively low pay and what some see as top-down management, faculty members at the University of Oregon are exploring the possibility of forming a union.

The effort still is in the informational stage with meetings being held around campus to discuss the idea and hear from faculty members at other universities who have formed unions. Organizers say it’s not certain if or when professors will be asked to vote on the question, but one said an election could be held before the end of the current academic year.

The idea has been floating around campus since a group of professors began discussing the possibility in 2007, said math professor Marie Vitulli, who was among that original group. Last year, they invited representatives of the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers to help.

Those organizations have since assigned an organizer to work with UO faculty and have begun laying the foundation for a bargaining unit that could include tenured and untenured professors, instructors, researchers, librarians and non-management administrators. It’s not yet known how many university employees would be included in the bargaining unit, but the UO has about 1,000 full- and part-time faculty members.

About 1,400 classified workers at the UO already are members of the Service Employees International Union. The new group is being called the United Academics of the University of Oregon and has set up an office just off campus.

The UO would not be the first state university with a faculty union. Portland State University has one, and the AAUP and AFT are involved in an organizing effort at Oregon State University. Faculty unions also exist at Western Oregon University, Eastern Oregon University and Southern Oregon University.

Vitulli said concern about pay and benefits is one reason for considering a union. UO faculty are generally ranked at or near the bottom in pay among institutions in the groups the state uses as comparators.

The UO ranks last in average salary and in average total compensation — pay plus benefits — on a list of nine large public universities the state uses for comparing budgets. The average faculty salary is 80 percent of the average for the other eight universities, and total compensation is 84 percent of the average.

Also, the UO ranks last in pay among the 60 members of the Association of American Universities, an invitation-only group made up of many of the top public and private universities around the nation. In that comparison, the UO’s average faculty salary of $73,300 is 11.5 percent below that of the second-to-last school, the University of Missouri, which has an average faculty salary of $82,600.

But of as much concern to some people on campus is the voice faculty have in major decisions affecting the university. Vitulli said many people feel that the university’s top executives don’t give much weight to faculty views.

The UO Senate and a multitude of advisory committees let faculty weigh in on issues, but Vitulli said their advice often isn’t reflected in final decisions.

“There’s a growing division between the administrators and the faculty and other employees,” she said. “The Senate advises, but the Senate really has no power. The Senate can pass a resolution and the resolution can be ignored. We feel like we don’t have a voice.”

Asked to comment on the union effort, the UO Provost Jim Bean said the university “supports the rights of faculty and staff” as they decide whether to unionize and will make relevant information available.

“The ultimate decision about whether to unionize is up to each individual faculty and staff member, and the university will remain neutral in that process,” he said. “Accordingly, the university’s goal on this issue will be to merely ensure that accurate and relevant information is available to everyone.“

Dennis Ziemer, an organizer with the AFT, said the response to the union drive so far as exceeded expectations.

“It’s tremendous,” he said. “It’s been tremendous in areas we didn’t expect it to be tremendous. We’ve got great support.”

A collective bargaining union can be formed if at least 30 percent of those who would be represented petition the state bureau of labor, either through an election or what’s known as a card check, in which workers sign a card indicating their preference for a union. Ziemer said the question won’t come to a vote until supporters are confident the vote will well surpass the minimum needed.

“There’s a growing division between the administrators and the faculty ...”

— Marie Vitulli, UO Math professor, on the possibility of organizing a union